" No doubt, Charles abetted the two adulterous affairs of his Emma, whom he loved, in an implausible, suspect way. Well then, his considerateness showed his stupidity, as we have been assured, and more than once. But love sets a limit to stupidity. No one in his right mind—and the country doctor certainly was, or else he would never have reached the modest status of glorified barber-surgeon—behaves like the cocu, the cuckold of bad jokes the men in the Café du "

― Jean Améry , Charles Bovary, Country Doctor: A Portrait of a Simple Man